by Lynne Graham
Tim said something unrepeatable about Danny Philips. Then he smiled. ‘You should marry Jeff. He’s stood by you and he’s got all his Daddy’s hotels coming to him—’
Kelda concealed her distaste. She knew she would miss the luxuries her high earnings had brought her but she had no intention of marrying to maintain that lifestyle.
‘I should have stopped seeing Jeff weeks ago,’ she confided wryly,.
‘I liked Jeff.’ Tim frowned at her. ‘Let him down gently.’
As she dressed for her dinner date that evening, she grimaced. She had already tried and failed twice to let Jeff down lightly. So much for her heartless bitch image! She liked Jeff but he was getting serious. He wasn’t the Mr Right her daft mother liked to talk about. Kelda had decided a long time ago that Mr Right didn’t exist. Not for her, anyway. She attracted all the wrong types.
The poseurs, the predators. To most men, she was a trophy to show off, a glorified sex object, whose greatest gift was the envious reactions she stirred up among their friends. Five feet nine in her bare feet, Kelda had the sleek slender lines of an elegant thoroughbred and a face that every camera loved. She had flawless skin, gorgeous hair and beautiful eyes. At sixteen she had suddenly blossomed from a gawky, flat-chested late developer into an eye-catching young woman, who turned heads wherever she went. The attention had been balm to a self-esteem continuously battered by Angelo’s cruel tongue.
He had so very nearly prevented her from becoming a model. If it hadn’t been for the divorce, she would have ended up resitting the final exams she had failed.
‘You let her go to London, she’ll go wild,’ Angelo had forecast. ‘She’s too immature, too undisciplined and too volatile.’
Angelo had always taken great pleasure in ensuring that whatever she most wanted she didn’t get and whatever she least wanted, she got in spades. But she hadn’t gone wild, had she? She had clawed her way up the ladder to success and exulted in her first Vogue cover. Rather childishly, she recalled reluctantly, she had sent a copy of that edition to Angelo, desperately afraid that he mightn’t have seen it. Very childish, she acknowledged. Then, Angelo had always brought out the worst in her character.
Jeff arrived with a massive bunch of red roses and her heart sank. Dinner at a candlelit restaurant followed. No matter how often she tried to tactfully change the subject, Jeff brought it back to marriage. He was like a terrier chasing a bone.
Her conscience smote her. Jeff had staunchly stood by her throughout the tabloid attacks. Other friends had deserted her like rats escaping a sinking ship. Jeff had had touching faith in her innocence. What a shame it was that you couldn’t love to order, she thought ruefully. She valued Jeff’s friendship but she was beginning to realise that no matter what she did, she was going to lose that as well.
‘I’m really very fond of you,’ Kelda stressed carefully.
‘I don’t want you to be bloody fond of me!’ he muttered with unexpected heat. ‘I want you to marry me.’
‘I can’t.’
For the remainder of the meal, he swung between arguing and a monolithic attack of the sulks. Kelda managed to charm him out of the worst of his mood but he was drinking too much. Unfortunately she had already agreed to join friends of his at a nightclub. Her attempt to pull out of the arrangement was badly received. Fearful of a public scene, she steeled herself to face what remained of a difficult evening. If it was at all possible, she didn’t want to hurt Jeff’s feelings.
Belatedly she realised that she had made the wrong decision. In the foyer of the club, Jeff suddenly attempted to drag her into his arms and Kelda slapped his hands away with the fury of a bristling tigress. Of all things, she hated being mauled in public.
‘I’m absolutely crazy about you!’ Jeff announced stridently. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you?’
‘If you don’t behave yourself, I’m going home!’ she hissed at him in an undertone and turned on her heel, praying that he would cool off.
A split-second later, she stopped dead in her tracks, slaughtered by the sheer shock of finding Angelo less than six feet from her. He had the advantage, she registered. He had seen her first. At six feet four, he was one of the very few men capable of looking down on her even when she was wearing her highest heels.
She was paralysed, her heartbeat quickening, colour flooding her translucent skin and then slowly, painfully draining away again to leave her paper-white. Chillingly dark eyes cut into her like grappling hooks in search of choice and tender flesh. Every tiny muscle in her tensed body jerked tight as she braced herself for attack.
‘I presume you do intend to speak, Kelda.’ The smooth, cultured drawl sliced through the thickening atmosphere and clawed nasty vibrations of threat down her sensitive spine. He was like a sleek, terrifyingly dangerous black panther about to strike.
‘Did you hear someone speak?’ she asked Jeff, planting a trembling hand on his arm. ‘I didn’t.’
She swept past Angelo and his dainty little blonde sidekick with inches to spare and her classic nose as high in the air as she could hold it.
‘Do you realise who that was?’ Jeff bleated in her ear.
‘Once upon a time, my mother was married to his father. That creep was my stepbrother. And we didn’t part on such terms that I feel I have to notice him in public.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me that your mother had been married to Tomaso Rossetti?’
Jeff was so helplessly impressed by anyone whose bank balance was greater than his father’s. ‘It wasn’t important.’
‘You just cut Angelo Rossetti dead,’ Jeff groaned. ‘Are you out of your mind?’
Sitting down, Kelda fought to still the nervous tremors still rippling through her. ‘He told me once that I had the manners of a slum child. He ought to be pleased to see how well I’ve turned out.’
Shock seemed to have sobered Jeff up. ‘My father’s into the Rossetti Bank to the tune of a million and we’re looking for an extension on the loan. I was so shattered by what you did out there, I didn’t speak either.’ Abruptly, he bolted upright again. ‘I’d better go and apologise.’
Her temples were throbbing. ‘I’m sorry...I didn’t intend to involve you—’
‘My God, you must have a death wish!’ Jeff muttered. ‘Nobody treats Angelo Rossetti like that and gets away with it.’
‘I think you’ll find that I have,’ Kelda asserted with more confidence than she actually felt.
She had gone too far. Temper and other emotions that she had no desire to examine had taken over. Did she never learn? Angelo taunted her and she still went for the bait. The teenage years might be behind her but evidently the responses weren’t. Only she could know the depth of the bitter mortification which overwhelmed her in Angelo’s radius. Nothing had changed.
Absolutely nothing had changed. In one glance she had learnt that. Angelo had stared her down with freezing hauteur and distaste. The dust beneath his feet would have inspired less repugnance. Of course he hadn’t seen her since that night...not once, not even briefly. He had gone abroad and shortly after that their parents had parted. She shuddered under the onslaught of a mess of confused emotions, none of which was pleasant.
Tonight she had reacted in self-defence as she had so often in the past. ‘Hit and run’ best summed it up, she conceded shamefacedly. If she hadn’t got away immediately, her control would have splintered and he would have seen that, caught unprepared, she was vulnerable. Naturally his hostility would be on a high again at the prospect of her re-entering the family circle with her slum-child manners and her legendary promiscuity.
But this time Angelo had been ahead of her. This time he was isolating her. She recognised the subtle brilliance of Angelo’s manipulation of her mother and her brother. How come they didn’t see it? Frankly, Tim was pleased at the idea of being part of the Rossetti clan again. Tim was always broke, always in debt. Tomaso was open-handed with money.
And Tim, like her mother, had always walked in awe of
Angelo. Angelo was so clever that he had finished university in his teens. Angelo spoke half a dozen languages with the sort of fluency that made lesser mortals cringe. Angelo was so dazzlingly successful in the field of international finance that he was currently being tipped to become the youngest ever chief executive of Rossetti Industrial. Tongues that had dared to talk of nepotism had long since been silenced. Everything Angelo touched turned to gold. His opinions were quoted in the serious newspapers. Tomaso thought his son literally walked on water.
‘I must say that he was very gracious about it.’ Jeff reappeared, exuding an air of strong relief. ‘He’s asked us to join their table.’
Kelda went rigid. ‘But what about your friends?’
Jeff grimaced. ‘Don’t be so naïve, Kelda. You get an invite like that from Angelo Rossetti and you grab it. He’s got influence like you wouldn’t believe in all sorts of powerful corners—’
‘I’m sorry. I have a dreadful headache.’ Kelda stood up, her face a mask of disdain. ‘You can call a cab for me if you like—’
Slowly he shook his head. ‘Kelda...’
She was immovable. Catch her falling for a trick like that? No way would she give Angelo the opportunity to put her down in front of an audience. He excelled in that direction. Time was when she wouldn’t have had the wit to forestall him...time was when she would have waded in with both fists metaphorically flying, unconcerned by the presence of others. Suddenly she was unbelievably grateful to be a mature twenty-four, rather than an insecure, dreadfully unhappy teenager, trying to act older than she was.
Jeff was furious. She was wryly amused at the way the prospect of making an influential contact had cleared his wits and turned him off his previous insistence that he loved her and wanted to marry her. Insisting that he go and find his friends, she went home alone.
Switching on the lights in the lounge, she kicked off her shoes and switched on her answering machine. Nothing. Once there would have been at least a couple of messages. Not now...she was yesterday’s news. The Iceberg, who drove innocent married men to suicide. Her apartment would sell for far less than she had paid for it. Her bank balance was at an all-time low. She had had insurance for accident or injury but nothing to cover what amounted to being virtually unemployable. The media had turned her into a figure of hate. There had been plenty of pictures of Danny’s tear-stained, plain little wife. The wife that Kelda had not even known existed, living in the country as she did with their two young children while Danny had lived the life of a free and easy single man in the city during the week.
He had actually told Kelda that he went home most weekends to his elderly parents! With a sudden choked sound between a laugh and a sob, Kelda covered her working face with two unsteady hands. How could she have been so stupid? And how could Danny have told so many lies? For the money, she thought cynically. The true story would have made surpassingly unexciting reading. Danny had made her look like a vicious bitch, who used men up like tissues and threw them away when she got bored. And the truth...really the truth was far more pathetic, she reflected.
Here she was all dressed up in the proverbial sexy little black dress which showed off her perfect curves and endless legs and what was she, she asked herself painfully as she stared at her reflection in one of the mirrored wardrobes in her bedroom. A complete fraud! Less of a woman certainly than Danny’s poor little wife, who loved him and had borne his children and who had apparently been willing to forgive and forget from the instant he landed in that hospital bed!
What did it feel like to love like that? She couldn’t imagine it...she had never loved, only once experienced the devastation of desire...and that she never ever allowed herself to remember. It had hurt so much and so badly; she had been savaged by her own vulnerability. Deep down inside the pain was still there like an indoor alarm system. A man put his arms around her and if she felt anything at all, the alarm went off. If he makes me want him...what then? And she would go cold, inside and out.
The intercom buzzed beside the front door. It was two in the morning. With a crease between her brows, she pressed the button.
‘Angelo here...’
Kelda’s stomach clenched fearfully. She leapt back a step.
‘Go away!’ she shouted.
She heard muffled speech as if he had turned to speak to someone else.
‘Calm down, cara,’ Angelo purred.
Her lashes blinking in bemusement at the smooth endearment, Kelda let rip again, something terrifyingly akin to hysteria audible even to herself in her shrieked response. ‘Leave me alone!’
She walked away from the front door, breathing fast, and backed into the lounge where she sat down on the sofa and wrapped both arms round herself tightly. She had had a lousy evening, a lousy week, a lousy month come to that. She was not in the mood for a fight with Angelo. Dimly she had known that it would come, but she hadn’t been prepared for it to happen so soon.
It was with utter disbelief that she heard her front door open. She lurched bolt upright in genuine fear, cursing herself for not using the chain.
‘Do you think I should call a doctor, Mr Rossetti?’ a vaguely familiar male voice enquired. It was the night security guard.
‘No...I don’t think that will be necessary now that I am here. Thank you again.’
‘It’s a pleasure to be of service, Mr Rossetti.’
She heard the crackle of money changing hands and she still couldn’t move or react. She couldn’t believe that Angelo had somehow contrived to break into her very secure apartment with the assistance of the guard.
Angelo appeared in the doorway.
‘If you don’t g-get out, I’ll call the police!’ Kelda screeched at him.
CHAPTER TWO
KELDA had blocked Angelo out in the foyer of the nightclub. She had seen him and yet she hadn’t seen him. Her eyes had skipped off him again double quick, discarding the imagery as if it burned. And it did...it did. Angelo was drop-dead gorgeous.
‘My, but you’re pretty,’ she had trilled the very first time she met him at the age of thirteen, derisively scanning the near-classic perfection of his golden features and the lean, lithe perfectly balanced body that went with it. Amazingly, Tomaso had laughed. Angelo hadn’t.
And then as now, Kelda had somehow found herself still staring, after the laughter had died away. He had the slashing cheekbones of a Tartar prince, long-lashed, brilliant dark eyes and a strong aristocratic nose. The whole effect was sexually devastating. She hadn’t known what made him so disturbing when she was thirteen...but she did now.
Angelo was sinfully, scorchingly sexy. It hit the unwary like a forcefield of raw energy. The very air seemed to sizzle round Angelo and when you reached a certain age, she acknowledged, that certain age when you often embarrassed yourself with your own thoughts, you would look at a male like Angelo and find yourself quite unable to avoid wondering what he was like in bed...
A little voice inside Kelda’s head cruelly reminded her that she was not entirely unaware of what Angelo was like in bed...and instantaneously a wave of mortified heat engulfed her translucent skin. It was hardly surprising that such painful imagery should visit her now. This was the first time they had stood face to face since that ghastly, unforgettable night over six years ago.
‘The police,’ Angelo reminded her with satire. ‘Weren’t you about to call them? Or have you decided that you really can’t afford the publicity?’
As Kelda’s teeth gritted, she made a swift recovery from her unfortunate loss of concentration. ‘How did you persuade the guard to let you in here?
‘I told him you were suicidal,’ Angelo drawled softly. ‘And you probably will be by the time I’m finished with you.’
‘Get out!’ Kelda gasped. ‘Get out of my apartment!’
‘It’s not going to be your apartment for much longer.’ Angelo cast her a veiled glance of cruel amusement. ‘In the current market, I suspect you are about to suffer from a severe negative equity problem...t
he sale price is not going to wipe out the mortgage debt—’
‘Damn, you to hell!’ Kelda interrupted tremulously. ‘I know what negative equity is. I’m not stupid—’
‘You just didn’t manage to pass a single exam in all those years of expensive education,’ he inserted.
‘I’m thick,’ Kelda responded through clenched teeth, refusing to rise to the bait.
‘Surpassingly so,’ Angelo agreed. ‘If you had listened to me, you could have had the modelling career and the education to fall back on. As it is, you have neither—’
‘I can’t believe you actually came here just to crow!’ Kelda blistered back.
‘I want you to understand your present position,’ Angelo breathed almost conversationally. ‘If you think that your future is on the skids now, you’re wrong. Life could become so much more painful... with a little help from me.’
The assurance hung there in the pulsing air between them and her blood ran cold in her veins. She cleared her throat. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Surprised?’ Angelo sank down with innate grace into a wing-backed armchair and surveyed her with total cool. ‘I have no intention of allowing you to come between my father and your mother a second time...’
Her tongue snaked out to wet her dry lips. ‘A second time?’
‘You put considerable stress on their relationship six years ago—’
Rigid with incredulity, Kelda spat, ‘That’s a filthy thing to say!’
‘But true, and this time matters were proceeding smoothly until once again you intervened—’
Kelda was shaking. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
A satiric brow climbed. ‘Last night, Daisy asked my father to give her more time to consider his proposal, and we both know why, don’t we?’
Kelda thrust up her chin. ‘Naturally she wants to think it over very carefully. You can’t blame me for that. For goodness’ sake, she divorced him five years ago!’
